Recently,
we debated the Pledge of Allegiance case with Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans
United for The Separation of Church and State. Here’s a quote from that public
radio debate:

“The
founding document is not the Declaration of Independence, in fact you don’t cite
that in legal briefs, what you do cite is the Constitution, which with the
reference, with the exception of the reference, the linguistic reference, the
‘In the year of our Lord’, uh, there is absolutely no religious content except
the prohibition against a religious test for public office, so that’s the
seminal document, they, that was done deliberately without reference to God,
because this was not a godless country, but it was simply a God-Free
Constitution.”

First, the
Declaration of Independence has been cited by the courts and in legal briefs for
centuries. Secondly, if the Declaration of Independence is not the founding
document, what is it? A memo to King George? Thirdly, absolutely no religious
content? A God-free Constitution? Where does Reverend Lynn think the Founders
came up with the principles of liberty, justice, separation of powers, and the
Bill of Rights in the first place? Does he think that the blessings of liberties
the Founders spoke of in the Constitution simply fell from the sky?

Has he
never read about Benjamin Franklin’s prayer during the Constitutional
Convention?